Compare And Contrast Essay On The Secret Life Of Bees

As humans, we tend to believe we are far superior to all other creatures, that we have nothing in common with anything thought of as ‘below us’. We are very wrong in thinking that. In the novel the Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, it is proven that though we do have differences, we are not so different from such a ‘simple’ creature as the bee. In the novel, Kidd compares a bee community, meaning their hives, to a human community, which could mean something as big as a town or city, or something as small as a family. She makes the reader realize that we are similar to bees in the way we treat life and crave love from others. She also, however, shows us how we differentiate in little ways like being able to replace a leader and the ability to hate. By comparing the two different communities, Kidd helps us understand the workings of life itself.
Unlike a human government, “A hive without a queen was a death sentence for the bees. They would stop work and go around completely demoralized.”(286). In a human government, we elect a leader and someone to take their place should something happen to them. In a bee community, if a queen dies or leaves the hive, all the bees stop working and their society falls apart. There is also the emotion issue “I hate you!”(39). Humans possess the ability to feel and think for themselves, and one of our strongest emotions is hate. Bees do not hate other bees to our knowledge, and they are drones who work as a unit, not free-thinking individuals. Although humans and bees are obviously very different, we are very much alike as